Hard Target (20 page)

As Trish kissed Maggie good-bye, DeSantos gently stroked the girl’s hair. The munchkin hunched her shoulders as if being tickled, then turned slowly and saw DeSantos. Her eyes squinted as a smile broadened her face. She reached out and gave her godfather a big hug and kiss.

Uzi grinned at the sight of his tough partner melting under the little girl’s touch. He knew the feeling, but the memories were too painful, and he forced them aside.

“I’m going to walk them out,” Maggie said.

The door closed and DeSantos motioned Uzi down the hall. “So you found something.”

They entered the kitchen, a large square with stainless steel appliances, a temperature-controlled wine cabinet, and honey-stained wood floor. Maggie obviously liked peppers, as the red chilies adorned the frilly curtains, wallpaper, placemats—even the magnets on the refrigerator.

Uzi pulled out his smartphone. “Is your place clean?”

“Don’t bother. I check it every day. We’re fine.”

Uzi hesitated, but acquiesced and put the handset away. “Yes, I found something. Maybe.” He took a seat at the butcher block table and reclined in the chair, his hands shoved into the deep pockets of his overcoat. “I met with a guy tonight who thinks that Knox is in bed with the NFA.”

DeSantos rolled his eyes. “Not this again.”

“Hear me out. This guy says the NFA has become the strong-arm of the far right. They’ve given huge bucks to cover their interests in the White House. Everything was cool till Rusch’s sister was murdered. Then he went on this crusade, switched policy, and came out against the gun lobby.” He shrugged. “Maybe the NFA was furious and came up with a solution to their problem.”

“And killing the vice president was their solution?”

“I’m thinking that if he lost the election, they wouldn’t have set off the device. But as soon as they called the race, Rusch was a liability that had to be eliminated. Vance Nunn is a staunch conservative and he’s never spoken out against the gun lobby. Easy choice. They decided to take their chances with Nunn.”

DeSantos was quiet as he processed what Uzi had told him, no doubt running it through his bullshit filter. Finally, he asked, “And what do you think this has to do with Knox?”

“Knox is a member of the NFA. He went to school with Skiles Rathbone, NFA’s top dog. Best I can tell, they grew up together.”

“Well, that does it for me. Let’s get an arrest warrant for the fucking FBI director because he went to the wrong school and grew up in the wrong town.” DeSantos stood up. “Christ, Uzi, you sound like some whacked-out conspiracy nut. This guy you talked with. I bet he’s one, too.”

“Bishop’s a straight shooter. I felt him out. He was careful of what he said and refused to jump to conclusions without proof. He seemed responsible, not some nut bent on making a point at all costs.” He paused a second, as if suddenly convincing himself of his feelings about the man.

“Uzi. You’ve been in law enforcement a long time. You know the unwritten rule. Never trust an informant.”

“Because they’re usually criminals who’d lie or cheat to save their own asses. But this guy isn’t a criminal. His sheet’s clean. Well educated, upstanding citizen—”

“Who might have a hidden agenda of his own.”

Uzi shook his head. “I believe him.”

“What, that these guys were from the same neighborhood?”

“No, that info I got on my own.”

The front door opened and Maggie walked in. “Brrr. It’s cold out there.” Arms banded across her chest, she shivered her way into the kitchen, looked at Uzi and DeSantos and seemed to sense the tension in the air. She backed out slowly. “Cold in here, too. I’m going to bed.”

DeSantos did not look at her. He was still staring at Uzi. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

Uzi knew the comment was directed more at him than at Maggie.

She disappeared. DeSantos slid the kitchen door closed.

“Uzi, I’ve known Douglas Knox for fifteen years. I’ve worked under him both officially and unofficially. I gotta tell you, if you’re suggesting a link between Knox and the attempted assassination of Glendon Rusch...” His voice tailed off. “You’re wasting your time. Knox doesn’t always play by the rules. No doubt about that. He’s personally signed off on black ops that no one else knows about, or wants to know about, or will ever find out about. You know the score.”

Uzi nodded.

“But everything Knox has done has been for the benefit of his country. Never for personal interests. Assassinating the veep is... That’s sacred, know what I mean? You don’t cross that line.”

“I can’t just ignore what I’ve found.” Uzi rubbed at his temples. “There’s not much to go on, I know. Just some sketchy stuff. But it set off my radar. I need to dig a little more, just to be sure. If he’s clean, no harm. If not...” Uzi shrugged. “Let’s see where it leads us.”

“There’s no ‘us’ in this. You go down this path, you do it alone. I can’t— I won’t investigate Douglas Knox.”

Uzi stood. “I hear you. I’d probably do the same if the situation were reversed.” He held out his fist and DeSantos reluctantly tipped it with his own. Uzi turned toward the door.

“Just be careful. Knox has a...circle of guys who look out for him.”

Uzi stopped and turned back to DeSantos. “OPSIG,” Uzi said, referring to the covert Operations Support Intelligence Group, the band of special ops players housed in the Pentagon’s supersecret basement. It was a group that did not exist on paper, with members who worked for a bogus corporation and carried false identification. Hector DeSantos’s group.

DeSantos looked away. “Close the door on the way out,” he said.

Uzi hesitated, then turned and left.

DAY FOUR

7:00 AM

127 hours remaining

Uzi walked into Leonard Rudnick’s office and sat down, his gelled hair still slick from a shower. Though talking about his feelings was outside Uzi’s comfort zone, doing it so early, when his defenses were still weak from cobwebs on the brain, bothered him even more. If his previous visit hadn’t gone so well, he might have thought twice about showing up.

Too much to do, too much to think ab—

“So,” Rudnick said. He reclined slightly, facing Uzi. “Any answers yet on the question I posed to you last time? About suicide—or, perhaps better phrased, your reason for living?”

Uzi sighed. “I haven’t had a whole lot of time for introspection. This case—”

“Then tell me,” Rudnick said. “How do you feel about loyalty?”

“Loyalty?” Uzi jutted his chin back. “In what context? I had a dog once, he was pretty loyal. We loved him. He protected us.”

“What does loyalty mean to you? At work.”

“You can’t have an organization like the Bureau without loyalty. Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity. That’s our motto.”

“Yes,” Rudnick said. “Rings a bell.” He smiled. Uzi did not.

“Look, doc, if you’ve got a point to this, I’d really appreciate if you could get to it. This talking in circles isn’t my way. I told you that when we first met.”

“So you did. Very well. You had an incident recently with Agent Osborn.”

Uzi’s eyes rolled ceilingward. “He blatantly violated procedure, and it could’ve had catastrophic consequences. And it wasn’t the first time. But instead of referring him for an OPR,” he said, referring to the Office of Professional Responsibility, “I brought it to the attention of my ASAC.”

“His actions endangered others?”

“They had a suspect holed up. Osborn was told to stand down, but when the guy bolted Osborn engaged him in a gunfight. Innocents were in the vicinity. Women and children.”

“Women and children.” Rudnick absorbed this, nodding slowly. “And how did reporting Agent Osborn sit with your colleagues?”

“I didn’t have his back. They made it real clear they weren’t too happy with me.”

Rudnick tilted his head, apparently waiting for Uzi to elaborate. He did not. So they both sat there, Rudnick looking at Uzi and Uzi doing his best to go along with Rudnick’s game plan without calling it a session and walking out.

Finally, Uzi spoke. “Look, doc. I really don’t have time for this—”

“How did their reaction make you feel?”

Uzi lifted a shoulder. “It is what it is. They don’t need to be my best buds, just my colleagues.”

“And if you were on a case where they had to watch your back...”

“I’d expect them to do their jobs best they can. Regardless of who’s in danger.”

“No emotion in the equation,” Rudnick said.

Uzi considered this a moment. Of course, Rudnick was right. “What’s your point?”

“You are very direct, Uzi.” Rudnick leaned forward onto the armrests of his chair, ran his tongue across his lips, and said, “My point is that we all have to coexist with people in life. It doesn’t matter if they’re coworkers, or friends, relatives, spouses...even the checker in the grocery store. We’re a race that thrives on human interactions. We have to make an effort to communicate with the people in our life, and to realize they have feelings just like you and me.”

“Doc, this guy didn’t follow orders. Do you understand what that means, what the significance of that is?” Uzi realized he was out of his seat and shouting. He sat back down and cleared his throat.

Rudnick stared at his patient. “Tell me.”

Uzi looked away. “When people don’t follow protocol, you can’t rely on them, you can’t predict outcomes. Things spiral out of control. People get killed. Innocent women and children get killed.” Uzi swiped at a tear that was losing its grip on his eyelid.

Rudnick sat there, locked on Uzi’s face, no doubt analyzing his little tirade. After a few moments of silence, he said, “Uzi, I think there’s more here to examine than just Agent Osborn’s actions on a maneuver in the field last week. What do you think, hmm?”

Uzi sniffled, took an uneven breath, his gaze buried in the carpet at his feet. “There’s nothing to examine. This case is taking all my energy, that’s all. I’m tapped out.”

“Tell me about the innocent women and children that get killed when procedures aren’t followed.” Rudnick’s voice was calm and melodic as usual, but there was an underlying force beneath its surface.

“Nothing. It was nothing. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Rudnick sat there, said nothing.

The time ticked by, a million images and thoughts blurring through Uzi’s mind.
How could he understand? How could I begin to explain?
“Rules are made to be followed,” Uzi finally said. “There’s a reason for them. They’re tested in the field, modified when they don’t work.”

“Is that the official Bureau position, or your own personal feelings?”

“The Bureau likes order, protocol. They have a four-thousand-page procedural manual.”

“I get the impression that you take these...rules very seriously, perhaps more seriously than most. Was it always that way? With the Mossad?”

Uzi’s head snapped up. Instinctively, he glanced around the room to see if anyone was listening. Of course, they were alone. “The Mossad has nothing to do with this. Even if it did, I couldn’t discuss it with you.”

Rudnick’s brow crinkled. “Remember, Uzi, that whatever we discuss here is confidential. I couldn’t tell anyone even if I wanted to.”

Uzi’s mouth curled into a frown. “I respect your ethics. I just— I just can’t trust them with certain things.”

Rudnick’s face flushed. “I make that statement with a depth that goes beyond usual doctor-patient confidentiality—which should be enough by itself to allay your fears.”

“Tell you what, doc. You tell me a secret. Something about yourself that means a great deal. Something you wouldn’t want anyone else to know.”

“I don’t see—”

“If I know something about you, and you know something about me, we each have motivation to keep the secret. Standard fare in intelligence. Kind of like having someone by the balls.” Uzi forced a smile.

For the first time, Rudnick looked uncomfortable. He seemed to shrink into himself. His shoulders slumped, his head shifted forward, and his eyes appeared to lose their brilliance. He sat like that for a long moment, then started speaking without looking at Uzi. “Very well. But I cannot explain why this is something that carries great meaning to me. I must show you. May I?”

Uzi shrugged.

Rudnick slid back his sport coat sleeve, unbuttoned his shirt button, and extended his forearm in Uzi’s direction.

Uzi remained back in his chair, glancing at the doctor’s thin, age-spotted skin and scraggly gray arm hairs with modest interest. But when he saw what was there, he immediately leaned forward. “Is that—”

“A tattoo? Yes. A concentration camp number? Yes again. Buchenwald.”

Their gazes met. Uzi suddenly saw his doctor in a different light. “You’re a survivor?”

Rudnick grunted. “I guess that describes my entire life, not just my time as a Nazi prisoner.”

Uzi leaned back. “And this is a secret?”

“It’s deeply personal, Uzi. Something I can’t explain and wouldn’t want to, if given the opportunity. I lost my mother and father, my two sisters, and my aunt and uncle. Everyone dear to me was taken, right before my eyes. Every possession lost, every value destroyed.” He stared off at the wall behind his patient before continuing. “If I were as good a patient as I am a psychologist, I’d have gone for counseling decades ago. Let’s just say no one knows what you now know. Aside from my son and late wife, no one has seen this tattoo.” Rudnick pulled his sleeve down and fumbled with the button. “I showed you this as proof that I also would not do anything to jeopardize the security of the State of Israel.” Having refastened the button, he shrugged his sport coat back into position. “Though I have to tell you,” he said with a hint of amusement, “most people accept doctor-patient confidentiality as proof of my silence.”

“I’m not most people.”

“There’s another reason why I showed that to you, Uzi.” Rudnick leaned forward, resting his elbows on the chair arms. “Following orders blindly is not always desirable. If there’s one thing of value we learned from the Nazis, it’s that. I doubt Mr. Shepard would argue. I also happen to know for a fact that every FBI agent I’ve ever known or treated has bent the rules at one time or other. It’s the intent that matters.”

Uzi looked away. He did not like being cornered. “The situations are totally unrelated.”

“Unrelated, yes,” Rudnick said. “But the underlying concepts are the same.”

“You don’t understand, you can’t understand. You can’t possibly understand.”

“Try me.”

“No.”

“Try me, Uzi.”

“No, I... I can’t.”

“How long can you go on with this bottled up inside you? How long until your body, your mind can’t take it anymore?”

Uzi looked away; his face felt flushed. “You’ve held it in for decades. Why can’t I?”

“No,” Rudnick said. “I treated it. I knew how to deal with it and I did so. Even though seeking outside counsel would’ve been better, what I did worked for me. But we’re not here to talk about my treatment. We’re here for yours.” The doctor paused, then said, “Perhaps now is the time to return to that question I asked you, the one about your reason for living.”

Uzi shook his head slowly. “I’m going to leave if you don’t change the subject.”

“Just talk to me, Uzi. I promise you it’ll help—”

“It won’t help anything!” Uzi was on his feet again, hands grasping clumps of hair. He turned and began to pace. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Rudnick stood and blocked his patient’s path. He grabbed Uzi’s wrists and said, “
I’m
not doing anything. You’re doing it to yourself.” His volume had risen to match Uzi’s.

Uzi stood there, burnt-red emotion coloring his face, his knees shaking. “Don’t you see? If I’d followed orders, if I’d done as instructed and followed protocol, my wife and daughter would still be alive today!” He was a volcano erupting. He had reached critical mass and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The emotions flowed out of him, hot and painful lava overriding everything in its path.

Chest heaving, on his knees, weeping. At his side was Rudnick, the doctor’s hands wrapped around his patient’s head, steadying it against his small chest. “That’s it,” he said calmly as Uzi’s body shuddered. “Just let it out.”

Uzi blubbered like a child, the tears cascading down his cheeks.

“We can now begin our work,” Rudnick said. “And you can now begin to live the rest of your life.”

8:21 AM

125 hours 39 minutes remaining

Uzi walked into his office, sunglasses blocking his bloodshot eyes. Hoshi was still bent over the laptop. Without saying a word, he moved behind his maple desk and sat down. Hoshi tapped away, apparently engrossed in her work.

“Tell me you went home last night,” Uzi said.

“I crashed on the couch. Woke up around five, went downstairs and did a half hour on the treadmill, then showered and went back to work.” She hit a few keys, then sat back and appeared to notice Uzi for the first time.

“You’re wearing sunglasses.”

“You’re so damned perceptive, Hoshi. That’s why I keep you around.”

“You look really cool, you know? But—”

“Don’t ask why I’m wearing them.”

Hoshi turned back to her screen. “You probably got into a brawl last night. Don’t want to admit you got clocked.”

Uzi did not answer. He turned to his screen and checked his email. “Did you find anything?”

Hoshi reached for her tea cup and took a sip.

Uzi looked over the sundry items Hoshi had laid out across his desk’s return—lipstick, lotion, hairbrush, cell phone, a pill case, an iPod—and that was just the top layer. “Just...make yourself at home.”

“Thanks. But the offer’s a little late. I already have.”

Uzi smirked. “No shit.”

Hoshi swiveled her foot out from beneath her buttocks and sat up straight. “I put together a document with everything we know about William Ellison.”

“Anything significant?”

“The doc is cleverly named ‘Ellison Profile.’ Take a look. Pretty boring, if you asked me. But,” she said, “you can get a lot of work done when no one’s around. It’s so quiet. No interruptions.” She took another sip of tea. “I’ve got people on my team doing some more digging, but I stepped back and looked at this Ellison murder. Sister’s ill, he’s obviously the caregiver, or at least the responsible party, and the pressure starts to build along with her medical costs. But she doesn’t have any health insurance. So what does he do?”

“Takes some money on the side.”

“Right. So I figure, follow the money.” She took another drink from her mug. “I sifted through the paperwork we got from his apartment, but there’s nothing there. I’m now at the point where I have to get out the shovels.”

“You need some warrants.”

“Yup.”

“I’ll get you what you need.”

She logged off the laptop, then swiped her forearm across the desk to corral all her items into a pile that she then dumped into her purse. Starting for the door, she said, “This teamwork shoulder-to-shoulder thing works pretty well. We should do it more often.” She stopped in the doorway and drew his attention. “And I meant what I said. Those glasses are way cool.” She winked at him, then left.

8:45 AM

125 hours 15 minutes remaining

Uzi emailed the information Hoshi had assembled on William Ellison to Karen Vail at the BAU. He didn’t know if it would help them refine their bomber profile, but he had nothing to lose.

As he picked up the phone to return the list of calls that had accumulated, Madeline informed him that Hector DeSantos was on the line.

“I need your help,” DeSantos said.

“I’m there,” Uzi said, relieved that their disagreement over Knox did not damage their friendship. “What do you need?”

“Pick me up in twenty,” DeSantos said. “We’re going fishing.”

As Uzi pulled out of the Pentagon parking lot, DeSantos told him they were returning to the ARM compound. Over the next ten minutes, the bare bones of an action plan began taking shape.